Category: pregnancy

I’m pregnant, and I couldn’t be happier. We were trying for 3 months, and are so thrilled that it didn’t take very long. We’re having a baby in May or early June! During my pregnancy, I’ll be blogging about my adventures in baby growing. Join the adventure!

These first weeks have been crazy and difficult. I can’t believe how quickly my body started acting differently. Almost immediately my stomach rebelled against me, and continues to stage a rebellion. I haven’t been throwing up, but am nauseous ALL DAY LONG. The whole “morning sickness” description is a total misnomer. After 5 or 6 weeks of nausea, I finally had my first doctor’s appointment and was given a prescription for Zofran. It has been a miracle drug. I feel like I have my life back for the most part.

My other major symptom has been tiredness. I feel like I’m in a waking coma. At the same time, I have trouble sleeping. What the what?! It makes no sense at all. I won a $70 giftcard from CSN from Candace Rose. She has another CSN giveaway running right now, so go enter! Anyway, I used the giftcard to buy a super awesome Snoozer Body Pillow that was $71.99 with free shipping. I got it in the mail last week and it is helping me sleep more comfortably. I love free stuff!

People keep asking if I’ve had any cravings yet, and I don’t really think I have. My sister-in-law is convinced that if I crave sweet, it is a girl, if salty, a boy. Who knows? If a craving comes along, maybe we’ll start the guessing.

These first weeks have been exciting, keeping our secret from the world and slowly telling family and friends before announcing it last week. I love that as each weeks passes, my baby is growing and is more secure in my womb. I feel more pregnant as each week passes. It feels a little like an alien has taken over my body, but at least it is a cute little alien.

What were your early pregnancy symptoms? How did you deal with them?

Come back next week for an awesome giveaway – a 9 month supply of Nature Made Prenatal vitamins with DHA (worth $144)!

This whole pregnancy thing is so new to me, and I have been getting tons of great advice from friends, online friends, and total strangers. I’m a member of the Frugal Living community on Blog Frog, so asked those fun folks for their best frugal pregnancy tips to share with y’all. They came up with some great stuff! I’ll share all of the tips with you over the next few weeks.

Frugal Pregnancy tips:

“Borrow.

Have a friend who was just pregnant? Talk to them about maternity clothes. Maybe they’ll let you borrow some shirts.

You don’t have to have every cool thing they make for babies. I’d splurge on a cradle swing even before a crib.

Talk to friends and neighbors who are all done having kids – esp if they just had their last kid. They’re dying to get rid of their old stuff. Check for safety issues.

Make sure your car seat is less than 3 yrs old.

Don’t pay any medical bill that hasn’t been through your insurance. I overpaid the doctor’s office because they insisted on a certain amount that *they* expected. It took a WHOLE YEAR to get my refund check.”

“This may sound silly to you but I just had a baby and this my personal experience. With my first, I craved taco bell like no tomorrow. And I ate it all the time. And whatever else I craved. With the baby I just had I craved pizza all the time. Instead of ordering out for it, we did homemade pizza and almost always had some in the fridge. When I was hungry but didn’t know what I wanted I would eat cereal. I had a ton in my stockpile and after awhile that’s what I craved. Those two things helped me save money on my cravings while pregnant!”

“Always try the cheaper brands first. My babies all did fine with the off brand diapers and I saved nearly $10 on a big box (buy the big box) each time. This is the same for wipes, food, bottles, etc.

Breastfeeding isn’t for everyone, but if you can, it’s the way to go. There are so many benefits for mom and baby, but it is a big money saver. Formula is about $22 a box and will probably get you through a week. Do that for a year and then move into sippy cups when baby can have cow’s milk.

Also, get items that grow with the baby: a crib that turns into a twin bed, a car seat that grows with baby,

And, don’t buy what the baby doesn’t absolutely need. Unless the baby really needs it, don’t introduce the pacifier, or the bottle, etc. Once you buy one of those, you will buy 40!

Our baby started eating the same things we were eating as soon as he could have solid foods. A $6 mini food processor makes your meal edible for the baby. Since we get vegetables from the garden and meat from the farm, we know the baby isn’t getting overly-processed foods either.”

“These are all great ideas. “Don’t buy what you don’t need”…I agree. I never had a changing table and I never missed out. I know several of my friends that said that was a useless item. If you feel you must have one buy one that grows with them like Kimberly said. In this case get a dresser with a changing pad on top.

I would not forget about thrift stores and yard sales too. You can find really awesome clothes for you and your baby all up until they are about 3-4 years old. Most people have too much stuff for their baby that is never used or maybe used only once and that includes clothes, and bedding.”

We have been trying for a baby for three months now, and this time around I was sure we were pregnant. Jed asked me to wait until I was 3 days late to test. We took the test that night, and it was a bit inconclusive. It was the kind with the plus and minus signs, but the cross bar on the plus sign was VERY light. I didn’t know what to think. The test instructions stated that even a faint cross bar was a positive, but we just weren’t totally sure. We prayed that night for our future child, as we had been praying for three months.

The next day I drove to Walgreen’s and bought the digital test, the one that reads – pregnant or not pregnant. I figured I couldn’t screw that up, right? I took the test while Jed was still at work (I work from home a lot) because I couldn’t wait. It said with certainty – PREGNANT! I immediately called and texted Jed, telling him to call me asap but that everything was ok. I’m sure he knew immediately that we were pregnant. He called me after school and was so excited.

That night he took me out to dinner at Tillman’s Roadhouse, a cool restaurant in the Bishop Arts District. It is fancier than our normal fare, and felt like a real celebration. I’ll feature it in a post later. The coolest thing about finding out we are having a baby is that we both have a total feeling of peace about it.

We could not be more excited to share our good news! I’m pregnant! Our first baby is due at the end of May. This pregnancy has been a huge part of my disappearance from the blog lately. I have been so tired and the nausea has been out of control. That is all on top of losing Jed’s mom, my huge fundraising banquet, and moving. Yikes. Things are still a little crazy, but hopefully I will be around a little more now that I have nausea meds. 🙂 I’ll have lots more posts about the pregnancy, so I hope you don’t mind. I have baby on the brain lately. Is it weird that I think the blob on the sonogram is really cute? Because I definitely do think it is the cutest baby blob I’ve ever seen. The whole sonogram thing was weird, but totally worth it. After seeing my baby and hearing the heartbeat, I definitely feel like a mama.

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Meet Becca of BFOTD

Becca is a follower of Jesus, wife to Jed, and mama of two wee ones. She loves creating, traveling, being frugal and adventurous, and blogging about it all. She is based in Dallas, Texas. Email her at barefeetonthedashboardATgmailDOTcom for more information.